A little on the rough side here too. It all started in late November and has yet to stop. Our permanent snow cover and cold usually starts in late January here and there was no thaws to boot. UGH!!

My 14 year old daughter fell on the ice last week and her left leg is still in hues of purple and red. Poor thing was helping us bring in the groceries.

The snow banks are not snow - they are pure ice - and they measure up to 1.5 feet deep. That means that we will be seeing them for a while yet, even if we do get rains and mild temps.

On the bright side, for whatever reason, we've burned less wood this winter. We usually have to get a couple more cords in late January, but they are scheduled to arrive the first week of March. Less $$ went out the door on that one this year. :O)

Today we made some maple syrup candy on the ice and it is deeeelicious!!

I am so ready to come out of hibernation! This seems to have been one of the longest winters ever. Perhaps it's partly the anticipation of seeing sprouts in my jugs. But yes, I agree, I am sooo over winter. Pass me a glass of chay chay please, lol.

I chopped up some yummy strawberries and put it in my chay chay and bagged up two more newbie packs. Mood has lifted.

Fruit products and seeds - it's a cure!

I agree Bakemom. I am so over winter too. Tiff I hope your daughter heals quickly. That is terrible. I have not been sick for a while. I know the niece brought it home from school. We just had a warm spell in Wi. But had snow all day yesterday. Boo hoo no more snow please...LOL

We didn't get the usual Feb thaw either-there was one day that it wasn't too bad & that cleared some of the snow, but mostly it's been snow & ice since before Christmas! (has anyone else noticed the glut of TV commercials for places like Florida lately?) The wind has been the thing that's keeping me in-brrr! This weekend I really started working with the seeds. Cleaning & packing the seeds made me think about collecting them in the yard when it was warmer & we lived outside-a nice thought! Filling the jugs in the basement isn't as nice as doing them in the shed, but it certainly helps to get through the cold weather-that & looking forward to the trade seeds!

I've been growing things indoors this winter. If not for that, I think I would have climbed a bell tower already. For all my gloating, I seriously don't understand humans that live above zone 7. It's not that I'm a whiner, I just can not deal with that level of cold for that long a period. Winter is one of 4 seasons. It should only last 3 months. Dec, Jan, Feb.

I've tried making soup. I burn my tongue and my feet are still cold. I've tried fires in the stove downstairs and in the fireplace. All my clothes smell like burnt wood. I've tried imagination therapy. I fall asleep.

I just want it to be over. While I love summer flowers, I am absolutely having a fit to sink my teeth into a fresh tomato that wasn't grown in Chile.

I am the odd one out, because I LOVE THE SNOW!

Right now it is snowing so hard I cannot see across the street - a real white out! Enough is enough. Let's get a posse together and go after that groundhog!
Kris

Just imagine if saying it could actually make it happen, I"m so over Winter, maybe if we click our heels three times while saying it, it will really go away. LOL

Anybody up for a pair of ruby red slippers?

Alberta

I've had it, too. It's 27 degrees and overcast now. Haven't accomplished much today. I'm making a pot of one of my favorite soups today- split pea with honey baked ham. It's been simmering on the stove all afternoon and I'm getting hungry now. My husband is helping now, peeling and dicing potatoes and carrots. That's about the limit of his cooking skills. I'll finish up with making the dumplings last.

Karen

I just got back from the grocery store. I got strawberries, bananas, oranges, and a head of cabbage. *sigh* The tomatoes were just pitiful looking.

It's been over a week now since the last time we lost power. (We've had an 8 hr outage, an 8 day one, and another multi-day one - I can't even remember how long that 3d one was for.)

But this week we finally got to watch the show "Burn notice" on the day it aired instead of having to wait to get power on and then watching it on the web. Winter is improving for us!

Of course, it sucked so bad before this week that it doesn't really take much to count it as an improvement. :)

Lynda

It's been like this all day - 20 minute whiteouts, 5 minutes rest, another 20 minutes. Couldn't see the groundhog if he was out there in plain site. *whine*
kris

{{gwi:358767}}

Gee, I was hoping for just a little more cold weather. I still have some perennials to sow yet. Between my granddaughter being born, watching 4 yo grandson and work I haven't had much time. But then again, with 120 containers of perennials I may have enough to deal with, still have my annuals and veggies yet.
It has been one heck of a cold winter though.
Donna Mae

I was done with winter weeks ago. This has been the worst winter I can remember ever (combo of weather and health issues). To top it off, my boiler went a month ago, there was a messy flood in the basement, several weeks of visits from plumbers, 3 cleanups, and the hose in my radiant floor is failing and that portion of the system needs to be replaced.

UGH.

It's been weird...this winter....
My gripe is that the sidewalks are constantly too icy for me to walk home from the train station after work. I am also wearing my heavy winter coat more often than usual.Sigh....
We just had several inches of snow....again...on Thur & Fri.
You folks in Ohio must be getting what we just did....

The good part of this winter is I get to ice skate during lunch hour more than ever before.

I have also signed up for a photography class at a community college near my house. It invigorates me since I am the only oldie in class. Even the teacher is years younger than me. lol. He's probably not much older than my son. :-)

Winter is the time I do things other than gardening. :-)

Hey Karen - I'm making split pea soup too this afternoon. We had one of those spiral baked hams this week and I figured I'd use the bone. Yellow peas, like my norwegian grandmother use to make.

I am also really, truly sick of winter. While we have not gotten so much snow, it has been a cold and rainy winter.

I'm am sooo done! The other evening it started snowing just before I had to go to work, and I was MAD! I was just soooo sick of snow, and especially driving in it, and that's that.

I had to laugh at one comment bakemom - it seems to snow/rain/ice every Wednesday, which is my garbage/recycling night, and I am so backed up with my recycling, because I can't always drag it out to the curb with the bad weather. I have about 8 bins to go out, and counting.

I think we were spoiled the last few years because the winters have been milder. This year, not only lots more snow, but it started way earlier than the last few years, which is making the winter seem sooooo very long....

:)
Dee

Kris it looks like you got today what we went thru yesterday..It is pretty though if you dont have to go anywhere... :) Barb

Yeah, I agree with you all... this winter has sucked big time! We still have ugly black ice and snow hanging around that originated in December. It's from a mound that was pretty close to 10 feet tall, where the snow plow drivers piled it up. It's not much... but DANG!

We're at 18 degrees now, going down to 11 tonight and then 22 for a high tomorrow. Spring's gonna get here... just not anytime soon!

I miss being able to take the dog out and let her run her little tail off! She misses it too... even she doesn't want to go out in this crap, though.

Still trying to sell my house here so I can go to SC to join DH, who has been there since last APRIL. Paying mortgage on this place and renting for him down there, I am keeping heat at 60 to keep bills down. At night I wear fingerless gloves at my computer, and a shawl over my sweater over my turtleneck.

Winter HATER here; Token, I'm with you. I want that long, sunny growing season (I am more comfortable than most people with high heat & even humidity), and I want it YESTERDAY!

Hmm, drippy, you brought up a good point and I have to make a confession. You mentioned heat and humidity. Well, for as much as I hate winter, I hate summer too, lol! Yeah, I know, a gardener who hates summer! I whine just as much about the heat and humidity as I do about the cold and snow!

Some day when I am independently wealthy I shall have two houses - one in a warm climate for the winter, and one in a cool climate for the summer!

Give me spring and autumn any day!
:)
Dee

It was 60 degrees here today, cloudy. Yesterday was warmer I'm sure because it was sunny all fternoon. We took our quads out and went trail riding for a few hours. I have 11 milk jugs with sprouts in them. And my pretty purple crocus are blooming. Yaaaa!

My dogs hate winter too! The girl weenie dog would rather do her business inside and take the scolding than go out in the snow!! And now both the girls are in season(we have a girl weenie dog, a boy weenie dog, and a girl irish wolfhound) I always hate explaining what the girls are wearing pants!!LOL!!
Hurry up spring so I can kick them all outside!
-B

Add me to the list of 'Yeah, let's be done with this already."

Another foot + overnight snow.

(p.s.
What's chay chay?)

This winter has been tough here. Starting with ice/sno Christmas week. The ice/snow pack finally melted when we had a brief warm up a 3 weeks ago, but the wind is horrible, anywhere from 30mph to 60mph.
We didn't get the lake front snow yesterday, I think it blew so hard it ended up in New York!
Windy now, too.
So far burned 4 cords of wood, a record high for me, tired of hauling, cleaning ashes.
Had to move my Ws'd containers to the other side of the house so they didn't end up at the neighbors.

Mary, I'm assuming "chay chay" is chardonnay...??

Umm, clc70, was that supposed to make us feel better? LOL! Just kidding - a bit of zone envy here. 60 degrees sounds downright tropical! We thankfully missed out on the projected snow last night, but man oh man is it cold and windy here. I actually did some housework this morning just to keep moving and stay warm!

:)
Dee